Marvel Knights 20th #5: Everybody Fights Everybody Else

One of the distinguishing features of the Marvel Knights imprint of old was innovation. As Donny Cates and his cast of talented writers guide the readers through a revisiting tour of the imprint to celebrate the 20th anniversary, I find the innovation in writing strong but in art lacking. The notion of heroes gravitating towards their natural characterization, as I’ve previously discussed, is very well executed. The natural tension between Kingpin and Doctor Doom seems perfectly fitting as egos clash. But as Doom points out the notion of the “observer effect”, it becomes increasingly unavoidable to consider the effect of looking back at the imprint and the effect our observations of the past might become altered from our current perspective.

The art is not bad, per se, but it lacks that sense of boundary-expansion that made Marvel Knights great in the first place. Henrichon’s art in this issue, for example, seems to grasp onto the gritty, unclean style of art that, on the surface, seems a good fit for the story, but on deeper examination falls into the standard, vanilla page-layout conventions of the medium. Missing are the touches brought by the David Macks, the Michael Gaydos, the Alex Maleevs of the world. It isn’t a crippling effect and I am still quite enjoying the nostalgia trip of MK20 but it is worth noting.